A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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Navajo and Hopi are hardly friends. Yet they have unanimously
agreed to a deal that could finally bring running water to
thousands of tribal homes that lack it in northeastern Arizona.
The wide-reaching settlement would resolve a slew of tribal
water claims in Arizona, not just those for the Little Colorado
River that have been tied up in court for generations. As a
result, Navajo and Hopi would be entitled to water from the
Little Colorado River and the Colorado River, as well as to the
effluent they produce and the groundwater that lies beneath
their lands. The deal also carves out a permanent homeland
for the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe and quantifies water
rights for use on those lands. That’s
huge. The closest Arizona ever got to a
settlement was more than a decade ago, when some tribal
members balked at the last minute and the deal fell apart under
its own weight. -Written by columnist Joanna Allhands.
PG&E announced on Friday, May 31 late last week that it
will request a 7-month extension from the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) in decommissioning the Eel River
dams. Stakeholders were expecting the utility to file its Draft
Surrender Application plan with FERC this month, with a final
version due in January 2025. PG&E now says it will file the
draft plan in January 2025 and the final version in June 2025.
In announcing the delay, PG&E expresses support for the
still vague proposal for the New Eel-Russian Facility. This
proposal would see a dam-free diversion from the Eel River to
the Russian River constructed and managed by the newly formed
Eel Russian Joint Powers Authority.
In parts of Los Angeles County, fire hydrants have become a hot
item. Thieves have stolen at least 302 hydrants since the start
of 2023 in several areas of the county, according to Golden
State Water Co. Many of the thefts have occurred in the
communities of Florence-Graham, Willowbrook and West Rancho
Dominguez, as well as eastern Gardena near the 110 Freeway.
Sometimes, thieves have unscrewed bolts to remove hydrants.
Other times, they’ve used a vehicle to knock the hydrant
loose. Those targeting the hydrants have often used a
shutoff valve before dislodging them. But on several occasions,
they’ve left water gushing. Law enforcement officials and
managers of Golden State Water Co. say they believe the
hydrants are being taken to recycling centers and sold for
scrap metal. The brass in the hydrants is especially in demand.
Drought is a hazard, but it needn’t be a disaster. That is,
provided all communities are adequately equipped before it
strikes. At the 10th World Water Forum, held in Bali from 18 to
25 May, experts urged decision-makers to prioritize drought
resilience in the face of climate change, drawing inspiration
from success cases around the globe. Representatives from the
scientific, non-profit, and technical sectors made the case for
building resilience to the world’s costliest and deadliest
hazard at an event featuring partners of the International
Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA.) … “Drought and
desertification are not just problems for the Sahel region of
Africa and for developing countries,” said UNCCD policy officer
Daniel Tsegai before an international audience. “We already see
impacts in highly productive and populated parts of the
developed world like California, Spain, and Australia.”
Water is essential to many of our daily activities, but aging
infrastructure jeopardizes these systems. According to the EPA,
the country has underinvested in water infrastructure, a
sentiment Jerry Burke, who is part of the American Society of
Civil Engineers, also shares. … [I]ssues range from
constant water main breaks to decades-old water pipes, and they
are just two of the reasons why the ASCE gave the country a C
in its latest infrastructure report card. The report card
is released every four years and highlights the condition and
performance of the country’s infrastructure. This past
2021 report was the first time in 20 years that the grade was
out of the D range. Each state is also given a report card,
with California also obtaining a C-.
California officials are cheering Mexican President-elect
Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory as one for the California climate,
too. “Having an engineer whose background is working on
climate, it’s a big deal,” said Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia,
a Democrat representing California’s inland border region who
was in Mexico City with Sheinbaum’s team on Sunday to witness
her landslide victory. … California politicians already
enjoy close relationships with their Mexican counterparts and
have agreements in place to work on a host of climate issues,
including drought, land conservation, recycling and
cross-border truck emissions. … Josué Medellín-Azuara,
an environmental engineering professor at the University of
California, Merced said he was hoping for more collaboration on
water infrastructure and drought resiliency in particular.
It’s not every day that a former source gets indicted. So when
a San Joaquin Valley water manager was charged by federal
prosecutors two years ago with allegedly stealing millions of
dollars worth of water for lavish personal gain, it stopped me
cold. It simply did not square with the person that I thought I
knew. Former general manager Dennis Falaschi of the Panoche
Water District ended up agreeing to a plea deal last week,
acknowledging that he stole some water and falsified some
income on a tax return. But upon any objective examination, the
deal is far more of a black eye to federal prosecutors than to
Falaschi himself because the feds had accused him of stealing
$25 million worth of water – more water than some California
cities use annually. The government utterly failed to prove
anything close to its original case. -Written by columnist Tom Philp.
The first rounds of dangerous heat have arrived this summer.
Millions of Americans will endure extreme heat throughout
California and Texas on Tuesday, according to the National
Weather Service. Excessive heat warnings, excessive heat
watches and heat advisories have been issued across both states
and the desert Southwest. Extreme heats will impact the Great
Basin and Intermountain West toward the end of this week
continuing into next week. The Lower Rio Grande Valley can
expect record-breaking temperatures and dangerous heat indices
through Wednesday. The heat index could reach 117 degrees in
the valley, while Corpus Christi can expect a heat index of 111
degrees on Tuesday.
The fate of the nation’s first outdoor experiment of the
potential to limit global warming by altering clouds will be
determined this week by a handful of local officials in the San
Francisco Bay Area. But before the city council of Alameda,
elected by a community of 77,000 people, decides on whether to
allow the resumption of the internationally significant
research, it will discuss replacing the roof of a senior center
and other municipal issues. The consideration of the marine
cloud brightening study — official, agenda item “7-B” — stands
to be one of the first consequential public hearings on solar
geoengineering in the nation. The unusual situation set to play
out Tuesday night illustrates just how hard it is to test
technologies that might be used in the future to brighten
clouds or spray aerosols in the stratosphere — promising but
ethically fraught ways to turn down the planet’s thermostat by
reflecting sunlight back into space.
Numerous lakes and reservoirs across the United States have
reached full capacity or near full capacity because of two
unusually wet winters. This resurgence in water levels is a
significant shift from the past few years when many regions
faced severe drought conditions. The map below shows all
the lakes currently at full capacity across the whole of the
U.S. These include several lakes that have been the subject of
great concern in recent years after prolonged drought
conditions. However, two wet winters in 2023 and this year,
have improved the outlook significantly, particularly in
California.
County public health officials say that a two-week
investigation showed “no conclusive evidence” of increased
gastrointestinal illness at a South Bay health clinic that
claimed its patients suffered such symptoms since Tropical
Storm Hilary inundated the heavily polluted Tijuana River in
August 2023. Public statements about a rising trend in
the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms such as abdominal
pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting spurred the county to
dispatch experts to South Bay Urgent Care from Feb. 5 to Feb.
18 during a period when several inches of rain fell across the
region. A close review of patient charts during that
fortnight, said Dr. Mark Beatty, an assistant medical director
in the county’s epidemiology and immunization department, did
find incidences of gastrointestinal illness, but at rates no
greater than were observed at other medical providers in the
area.
Wetlands are the Earth’s largest natural source of methane — a
potent greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more powerful than
carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere — according to the
Department of Energy’s Larence Berkeley National
Laboratory. Methane is a key point of controversy
among dairy producers and the environmental justice community
given that dairy and livestock are responsible for over half of
California’s methane emissions, according to the California Air
Resources Board. However, a peer-reviewed paper
recently published by CABI Biological Sciences argues that the
state’s dairy sector can reach climate neutrality in the coming
years through aggressive methane mitigation which almost no
other sector can achieve.
In the spring of 2024, I met top members of the Tachi Yokuts
Tribal Environmental Protection Agency at their offices on the
Santa Rosa Rancheria near Lemoore CA. During the extremely wet
winter a year earlier, the great Tulare Lake had once again
overflowed its dams, dikes, levees and ditches, as it does
every once in a while despite all the efforts of government and
agribusiness, and spread to its full size of 800 square miles
just south of the Rancheria, The return of the lake brought new
faith and determination to these extraordinary people, who have
lived here since long before the coming of the Europeans whom
they have barely managed to survive. -Written by Bill Hatch, a member of the
Revolutionary Poets Brigade of San Francisco.
A new study that can help growers and other readers estimate
costs and potential returns for Central Coast organic
strawberries was recently released by UC Agriculture and
Natural Resources, UC Cooperative Extension and the UC Davis
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. “This study
provides growers with a baseline to estimate their own costs,
which can help when applying for production loans, projecting
labor costs, securing market arrangements, or understanding
costs associated with water and nutrient management and
regulatory programs,” said Brittney Goodrich, UC Cooperative
Extension specialist and study co-author.
This year, engineers in California and Oregon are carrying out
the largest dam removal project in history. For decades, salmon
and trout in the Klamath River have struggled to survive in the
unhealthy water conditions created by four dams and diversions
of water for irrigation. And for more than 20 years, Indigenous
Tribes that depend on the fish have been fighting for dam
removal. In late 2022, after many rounds of litigation to keep
water flowing and the fish alive, federal regulators finally
approved a dam removal plan. As the dams on the Klamath come
down, members of the Yurok, a Tribe whose reservation sits at
the mouth of the river, say they are feeling hopeful about the
Klamath’s future.
Twelve people have died on Colorado’s rivers and lakes so far
in 2024, raising concerns among state officials as
water-related deaths are already higher than this time last
year. Four people died or went missing in water-related
accidents since Thursday, including a woman who died after a
river raft crashed into a bridge pylon in Poudre Canyon; one
man who died and a second who is missing after a rafting
accident on the Colorado River southwest of Kremmling; and a
man who drowned in Chatfield Reservoir. That’s in addition to
eight water-related deaths tracked by Colorado Parks and
Wildlife before Memorial Day, which is “very high” for this
point in the season, spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said Monday.
City leaders in Los Angeles have announced plans to take a
limited amount of water from creeks that feed Mono Lake this
year, a step that environmentalists say will help build on a
recent rise in the lake’s level over the last year. The Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power said it plans to export
4,500 acre-feet of water from the Mono Basin during the current
runoff year, the same amount that was diverted the previous
year, and enough to supply about 18,000 households for a year.
Under the current rules, the city could take much more — up to
16,000 acre-feet this year. But environmental advocates had
recently urged Mayor Karen Bass not to increase water
diversions to help preserve recent gains and begin to boost the
long-depleted lake toward healthier levels. They praised the
decision by city leaders as an important step.
Salinity in the Colorado River is a huge problem and threatens
to impact seven states, 30 Native American tribes and Mexico
because all those entities share this finite resource that
flows for more than 1,400 miles, provides water for 40 million
people and irrigates 5 million acres of farmland. To that end,
Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, presented his bill, the Colorado
River Salinity Fix Act, during a Natural Resources Subcommittee
on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries hearing earlier this month.
The legislation addresses the excessive salinity levels in the
Colorado River, which have significant environmental and
economic impacts on Utah and other Western states.
Known for its glowing swaths of yellow, orange and red, the
U.S. Drought Monitor has warned farmers, residents and
officials throughout the nation of impending water scarcity
every week since 1999. Backed by data on soil moisture,
temperature, snow cover, meltwater runoff, reservoir levels and
more, the map has become an essential instrument for
determining the outlook of water supplies, declaring drought
emergencies and deciding where and when government aid should
be distributed, among other things. But this critical
diagnostic tool is also struggling to keep pace with climate
change as longer and more persistent dry spells plague the
American West and take an increasing toll on groundwater
reserves and the Colorado River, according to a recent study
published in the journal AGU Advances. One problem, researchers
say, is that the monitor was launched just as one of the driest
periods in the history of the Southwest began, and it has never
been adjusted for the region’s growing aridity.
For well over a century, the Great Flood of 1862 has remained
among California’s worst natural disasters — a megastorm that’s
been used as a benchmark for state emergency planners and
officials to better prepare for the future. A dreaded repeat of
the flood — which killed at least 4,000 people and turned the
Central Valley into a 300-mile-long sea — would probably
eclipse the devastation of a major California earthquake and
cause up to $1 trillion in damage, some experts say. Yet even
as California scrambles to cope with the effects of climate
whiplash and increasingly extreme weather, new research
suggests the potential magnitude of such events could be far
greater than that of the 1862 deluge. After analyzing layers of
sediment at Carrizo Plain National Monument, researchers at Cal
State Fullerton say they have identified two massive,
unrecorded Southern California flood events within the last 600
years.
